ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Recently, the general counsel's office at NCUAissued additional guidance on the E-Sign Act.

The guidance (NCUA Regulatory Alert No. 01-RA-03 (March 2001),available on the NCUA Web site (www.ncua.gov), noted that financialrecords can be preserved in any format that can be retrieved forfuture reference. It further clarified NCUA's position on theE-Sign Act, which gave credibility to documents keptelectronically.

The E-Sign Act “permits electronic retention of records requiredby other statutes and regulations, as long as the electronic formis accurate and capable of being reproduced for later reference,”according to the NCUA guidance penned by NCUA Associate GeneralCounsel Sheila Albin.

E-Sign regulations established the formats for vital recordspreservation. Records can be preserved in any format that can beused to reconstruct the credit union's transactions.

The NCUA was asked about previous guidance issued June 24, 1999(OGC Op. 99-0443), which indicated that credit unions should retainoriginal loan documents. Albin noted that this previous opinionletter was issued before the E-Sign Act and present guidancespecifically conforms to the E-Sign Act.

Further, the guidance noted that credit unions should be mindfulof legal proceedings and noted that, as far as relying on copies orreproductions of records, credit unions “should also ensure thatthe reproduction is acceptable for submission as evidence in alegal proceeding.”

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